Filamentary materials such as wires, cables and the like are typically available to electricians or technicians in two forms, on reels or within non-reel cartons. The use of reels for the storage, transportation and dispensing of wire or cable is well known in the art. Presently, when electricians wish to dispense wire via a reel, they might attach the reel to a horizontal shaft of a pulling rack. For example, see Floyd U.S. Pat. No. D286,493. An electrician would then be able to pull the wire or cable tangentially off the reel.
However, as an electrician pulls the wire, the entire reel rotates and develops momentum. As a result, when the electrician stops pulling, the reel will continue to spin and release wire. The extra wire will often tangle or kink, requiring the electrician to untangle the wire and recoil the excess back on to the reel. Another problem with reel packages is disposal of the empty reel after all the wire has been removed.
Non-reel cartons eliminate the need for a reel and the attendant problem of recoiling. These cartons are sometimes also referred to as speed out cartons. Non-reel cartons utilize either conventional cardboard cartons or specialized cartons with dispensing guides. A single strand, or a multiconductor cable, of material is coiled with an open center (“air core”) and then placed into the carton. The strand is then dispensed through an opening in a wall of the carton. The coil is unwound from the center or innermost strand without rotating the entire coil. See Wise U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,636 (which is incorporated by reference). While non-reel cartons eliminate the unraveling and recoiling problems associated with reels, these cartons have their own problems. For example, when a coil is unwound from the center of a carton placed on the floor, there can develop enough resistance to uncoiling that the entire carton may tend to slide in the direction of dispensing. This is especially true when the wire is required to make sharp bends as it feeds through a payout tube in the side of the carton. Any tangling of the wire within the carton exacerbates this problem.
Another problem with non-reel cartons has more to do with common industry practice than with the carton itself. Many electricians prefer to use a portable wire pulling rack on which they can mount several different sizes, types and colors of wire. This provides ready access to whatever type of wire is needed for a particular job. The pulling racks typically have one or more shafts on which are mounted reel type wire packages. Non-reel cartons have no structure that enables them to be mounted on such a rack. If a hole is punched by the electrician in the non-reel carton to admit the shaft, there is a risk that doing so will damage the contents of the carton. Further, even if a shaft hole is successfully formed in the carton, the carton is not strong enough to support the weight of a full coil of wire on a shaft. Pulling forces would further degrade such a jury-rigged carton.
Another problem with existing non-reel cartons is the tendency of the cartons to tear at hand-hole openings. Such openings are provided to make it easy to grasp the carton and carry it. Often users will attempt to use one hand only to lift and carry the carton by the hand-hole opening. Depending on the contents of the carton, this can cause the carton to fail in the area surrounding the opening. The hand-hole then becomes useless and the carton must thereafter be lifted from the bottom, usually using two hands. Hand-hole failure can be a particular problem if the carton has been allowed to become damp or wet. Accordingly, this invention seeks to overcome these short comings by providing an adapter for non-reel cartons that allows such cartons to be used on a wire pulling rack.